"I prefer this to the alternative."

Danny Westneat, Seattle Times staff columnist:
"Words don't kill, killers do -
There are scores of reasons to demand that Sarah Palin and other politicians tone down their overheated rhetoric. The vain hope that it might allay a crazed killer is not one of them."
..."I'm with the father of the 9-year-old girl who was shot and killed in Tucson. He was asked about all this — the killer, his motivations and the debate now swirling about whether our politics is too heated — and he said, no, this is just the price we sometimes pay.
"This shouldn't happen in this country, or anywhere else," he said. "But in a free society, we're going to be subject to people like this."
He added, beautifully considering what he had lost: "I prefer this to the alternative."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2013909114_danny12.html